


sanctuary

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Torture, Not Leo Fitz Friendly, Realization, post 5x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 14:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14191326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: After what Fitz did to her someone finally comforts Daisy.





	sanctuary

He touches the area around the cut - still tender but healing very rapidly. Coulson always wonders about that, about Daisy’s recovery speed sometimes. Is it just her or something more sinister? Is it his fault or her nature? He brushes his fingers down her neck, settling on her shoulder, rubbing circles around its curve.

“I’m okay,” Daisy says, but her voice doesn’t seem to demand that Coulson stops the gentle touch.

He nods. Of course she’s not okay. How could she be?

They are alone, in one of the back rooms of the base. She’s sitting on a bare bunk and Coulson has pulled a chair next to her. They’re face to face. The whole building sounds empty, with May, Mack and Piper on a mission, Elena still recovering and Simmons, Deke and Fitz… well, Coulson knows where Fitz is. He doesn’t care much to know about the rest.

“I can’t forgive him, sorry, I can’t,” Daisy says all of the sudden, as if she were preempting the demands she thinks he’ll make of her. She’s wrong. 

“No one is asking you to,” Coulson tells her.

Daisy makes a bitter, helpless noise. “Not with words but-”

“You don’t have to forgive him,” he reminds her.

“I don’t think we should let him out yet,” she tells him. “I’m not sure what he might do.”

“Okay.”

Daisy holds his gaze, very intently.

“No, _listen_ , it’s not because I’m - angry, or whatever - I know the mission comes first, that’s what I’m doing,” she explains herself, as if being angry at the fact that one of her closest friends betrayed her trust and subjected her to a painful operation against her will was something Coulson could find fault in.

“I know you are,” he tells her. And he knows that she would never put her personal feelings above the mission, even when _she should_. The most disturbing thing of it all: Coulson knows that if Daisy says they can’t trust Fitz, she’s probably right. He drops his hand from her shoulder to her arm, squeezing it a bit. “It’s okay to stop thinking about the mission for a few minutes.”

“I didn’t know we could afford that,” Daisy replies. Something about a fleeting hardness in her eyes tells Coulson that she might be thinking about what he said to her when she wanted to stay in the Lighthouse in the future, when she wanted to sacrifice herself - he told her he needed her to lead, he spoke of the mission and not of what he was really feeling, that Daisy didn’t deserve more misery in her life just because she believed the lies others told about her. He should have said that; if in the end he was going to take away her choice - and Coulson wonders if she didn’t feel like what Fitz perpetrated was just an extreme follow-up to what he did to her, god he hopes not - at least Daisy should have heard his real reasons, not a desperate appeal to her selflessness. 

“It’s just you and me in here,” Coulson adds in a soft voice. “You can afford to feel however the hell you want.”

Her eyes widen and Coulson knows he’s struck the right cord. And he has the horrible feeling this is not a thing Daisy has heard a lot in her life. That’s she’s free to own her feelings. It’s not something she believes in. Not even when her friend puts her on a stretcher and cuts into her friend.

He looks at his fingers wrapped around her arm, the cheap fabric of the emergency sweater underneath. How could such a light touch begin to undo a lifetime of thinking she didn’t matter to anyone? 

Daisy drops her head a moment and then lifts it again, eyes clear fixed on Coulson.

“What is it?” he asks. She drops her head a bit. “Daisy?”

She looks up, her usual stoic fake humor on her expression.

“Nothing,” she massages the back of her neck. “I was just thinking I could really use a hug right now.”

Coulson hesitates for the split of a second it takes him to reflect on how sad it is that someone like Daisy thinks she has no right to ask for something so small, or that she should be embarrassed about it. They are already close enough that he only has to put his arms around her shoulders and pull her towards him. Their knees bump. It’s an uncomfortable hug but the way Daisy just falls to his arms and draws and the long breath of relief she lets out against his shoulder tells him how much she appreciated it anyway. Needed it. He hates the idea of Daisy needing this and not getting it. She shouldn’t need to ask. He should have hugged her the moment he came from his brief stint at Hydra Camp and learned the whole story of what had happened.

He feels Daisy thread her arms around his back, holding him back, tight. Coulson lifts his hand to her nape, running his fingers through her hair. He sighs too - as if he needed the hug as much as Daisy.

“Thank you,” Daisy mutters near his ear, but she doesn’t start to let go yet.

He wonders what should be done about Fitz. He’d rather listen to what Daisy wants. An ugly emotion in the pit of his stomach wants him to go to the cell and confront him himself, but he’s afraid of Daisy feeling like he was making it about himself and not her. It has happened before - Daisy _can_ fight her own battles, but Coulson always wonders if there’s a right time for her to rest and let others do it. And personally, before thinking about what to do with Fitz, Coulson would rather make sure Daisy is okay, he’d rather stay down here with her, lock the world outside, forget about earth-shattering prophecies and alien invasions. He’d rather be here and hold her for days, and comfort her as much as he can (but not as much as she deserves), and make this dirty back room into an island, a refuge, a sanctuary, for her.

Eventually - sooner than she wants to, Coulson senses - she lets go off the embrace and as she draws back on the bed she composes herself, forces her expression into something more neutral. She has always worn her heart on her sleeve, but only sometimes. 

“I feel like I should have been here,” Coulson says, and he regrets it immediately, because there he goes, making it about himself. “I mean I wish - maybe I could have done something to stop him.”

“Or maybe you would have ended with a bullet in your leg like Mack,” she replies. She shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s not your fault.”

He doesn’t completely believe that - deep down, there’s no way he won’t feel guilty about this, about leaving her behind again - but he nods at her.

“You look-”

“Tired?”

“I was going to say hungry.”

That elicits a smile. Very small, but still.

“Is there something around-?”

“Only cereal, I think.”

Coulson winces. “No, thank you, I’ve had enough of that.”

Daisy raises her eyebrow.

He’ll tell her the whole story in a bit.

“Can you settle for some coffee for now?” he asks.

“I’d like that,” she says.

She starts getting up.

“No, stay. I’ll make it,” he tells her.

He manages to track down a box with instant coffee, and a working kettle, and that’s a miracle. It is very much not enough for what Daisy should have. What Daisy deserves. Coulson wishes he could just walk onto the street and get something for her. He wishes he could at least go to the nearest gas station and buy terrible food full of refined sugar and other things that are bad for you for Daisy, because she could use the cheering up more than she could use the nutrients right now. Or maybe he could buy some ingredients and make her something. He wouldn’t want to take her out to dinner - not straight away, not until he cooked for her, to show her how much someone can think about her and care for her, Coulson has always thought there’s something important, almost magical in cooking for others for comfort (maybe he learned from his mom, now that he thinks about it), be it cooking for family, lovers, friends, or for… well, _for Daisy_.

Suddenly his mind busies itself thinking of the kinds of meals he would prepare for her if they had something edible in this goddamn secret base. Anything would do, really. He’s good at improvising. If only they had pasta and some canned tomatoes, a few spices. Daisy would appreciate anything, _she’d know_ what Coulson meant to do. It would make her happy for a bit - before she had to go back worrying about being a superhero and saving the world. And afterwards, after she’s saved the world again then they could go out on the streets again, find a nice diner, this time maybe they can even get to finish their pancakes, and this time maybe it can be just him and Daisy, and afterwards maybe he could take her to something fancier than a diner, though he knows Daisy doesn’t need fancy but it could be fun for her, and after what she’s been through - nevermind what went before, just what she’s been through in the last three days is enough to warrant some pampering at some expensive restaurant, and… Coulson looks down at his chest. He forgot. He was making plans. Making plans for her, _with her_. He is not supposed to be making plans. He is not supposed but it’s Daisy, it’s-

The kettle whistles.

Coulson almost chuckles.

As a sign of his epiphany this is a bit on the nose, he thinks.

He loves her. Very much and very well. And maybe he’s not sure how (he has a really inconvenient suspicion, though), or the way he should show her he does. But he can figure those out later. He’ll take her lead. For now he knows he doesn’t want to ever leave her, or let her spend a single day without knowing how much she is loved.

He comes back to the backroom with two mugs of coffee.

“What’s that?” Daisy asks.

“What?”

“You’re face, Coulson. You’re smiling.”

He sits down and hands her the coffee before replying.

He takes a moment, so she knows he means it, so he himself knows he means it.

“I’m smiling because I’ve decided I’m not going to die,” he tells her. With his free hand he searches for hers. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

He brings her fingertips up to his mouth and kisses them like he’s putting a seal on the promise.

When he lets go Daisy’s eyes water and god he didn’t want that. He doesn’t ever want that. Has he been selfish? He’s about to take all of it back when suddenly Daisy breaks into a smile.

She nods. “Good,” she simply says.

She hides her face - between looking like it’s about to break down and cry or break into laughter - under the mug as she drinks her coffee.

Coulson follows her lead, takes a sip too.

The mixture of bitterness and blandness makes him grimace.

“This coffee is terrible,” he says.

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees, chuckling and sobbing at the same time. “It is. So bad.”


End file.
